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EMBARGO: A Dinosaur Survival Thriller
The Pentagon finally admitted there was a fourth facility. It offered one reporter a look inside, on one he prints nothing until 0600 Wednesday.Book 7 of the Last Dispatch series. New a one-page "Previously" at the front catches you up, or start with LAST DISPATCH.
Before sunrise on a cold March morning in Tangier Sound, a waterman named Ames Crockett is dredging oysters off a Navy target island, a little earlier than the law allows, the way he always has. His wife Nell is at the wheel. By dawn she is alone on the boat with his boots beside her, and on the radio a friend from Crisfield is screaming.
Ivan Gomez has been hunting FAC 4 since the night Mia found it at the bottom of a 2019 routing slip. Now the man who signed for it calls him first. Merrow four miles of salt marsh, dead pines and bomb craters that nobody in Crisfield has set foot on in living memory. A press tour on Monday, a photographer, a TV crew, Navy escorts and a private contractor's men with rifles. A three-day embargo on everything he sees.
Ivan signs it. Because the last time a story got out too fast, eleven pickups of men with rifles came to see the animals, and this time the animals live in the water.
On Merrow nothing was ever on the lullaby. Something longer than a tractor-trailer waits at the sea gate for the feed boat's engine. Things with the wingspan of a small plane walk the marsh like herons and hunt by sight, so standing still will not save you. After dark the waterline belongs to the Crawlers. And in the old magazine pens, the River Runners are waiting for the contractor to open the bays.
By Monday night the tour is over, the boats are gone, and the people who are still alive are in a concrete range tower with one door. The ship that came for the animals sails at first light on Wednesday. The tower is wired to come down at five. And the bar off the north end of the island goes dry at dead low at 0418, and nobody on that island can wait for the next one.
The story is under embargo. The island is not.
EMBARGO is the seventh Last Dispatch a fourth facility on an island in the Chesapeake, a crossing by water in the dark, and three days nobody was allowed to print.
Before sunrise on a cold March morning in Tangier Sound, a waterman named Ames Crockett is dredging oysters off a Navy target island, a little earlier than the law allows, the way he always has. His wife Nell is at the wheel. By dawn she is alone on the boat with his boots beside her, and on the radio a friend from Crisfield is screaming.
Ivan Gomez has been hunting FAC 4 since the night Mia found it at the bottom of a 2019 routing slip. Now the man who signed for it calls him first. Merrow four miles of salt marsh, dead pines and bomb craters that nobody in Crisfield has set foot on in living memory. A press tour on Monday, a photographer, a TV crew, Navy escorts and a private contractor's men with rifles. A three-day embargo on everything he sees.
Ivan signs it. Because the last time a story got out too fast, eleven pickups of men with rifles came to see the animals, and this time the animals live in the water.
On Merrow nothing was ever on the lullaby. Something longer than a tractor-trailer waits at the sea gate for the feed boat's engine. Things with the wingspan of a small plane walk the marsh like herons and hunt by sight, so standing still will not save you. After dark the waterline belongs to the Crawlers. And in the old magazine pens, the River Runners are waiting for the contractor to open the bays.
By Monday night the tour is over, the boats are gone, and the people who are still alive are in a concrete range tower with one door. The ship that came for the animals sails at first light on Wednesday. The tower is wired to come down at five. And the bar off the north end of the island goes dry at dead low at 0418, and nobody on that island can wait for the next one.
The story is under embargo. The island is not.
EMBARGO is the seventh Last Dispatch a fourth facility on an island in the Chesapeake, a crossing by water in the dark, and three days nobody was allowed to print.
400 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 18, 2026
About the author
Nora Penn
77 books7 followersNora Penn writes fast-paced horror novels with strong, relatable characters.
Her favorite authors are Dean Koontz and Stephen King.
She released her first novel, Bite Me Spider, in November of 2017.
She lives in New Hampshire with his husband, who endures her various idiosyncrasies in return for being the first to read her new novels. They welcomed their first child, a daughter, on September 11, 2015.
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Like the Nora Penn Facebook page:
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Her favorite authors are Dean Koontz and Stephen King.
She released her first novel, Bite Me Spider, in November of 2017.
She lives in New Hampshire with his husband, who endures her various idiosyncrasies in return for being the first to read her new novels. They welcomed their first child, a daughter, on September 11, 2015.
If you don't want to miss any Nora Penn news, you can:
Like the Nora Penn Facebook page:
facebook.com/NoraPennWrites
Follow Nora Penn on Twitter:
twitter.com/NoraPennWrites
For more, please visit:
http://norapenn.com
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